A Visit to LuminArte

I finally decided to attend a gallery opening in Dallas last weekend. It is a long drive into the Design District where many galleries are located. The neighborhood, at night, is more than a little scary. I didn't want to go alone, so my personal super hero, husband Jeff, was my valiant escort.

The show intrigued me with its theme, "Red: Existentialism in Art". Gallery link here: http://www.luminarte.com/home.html  Artist, Alison Jardine was showing work there and I am a big fan of hers. Her work is so dreamy. It grabs my imagination, taking me on journeys to faraway places.

I am not sure who the fellow was playfully shooting Alison in the photo, but it was all in good fun.

Love her painting, In Retrospect, Hope. Alison has an excellent website http://alisonjardine.com/ Do make a point of visiting it to see more of her work!

I ended up having a lovely evening hanging out with fellow art enthusiasts. Wonder why I don't do this more often? For the new year, I will make the intention to go to more art exhibits and openings!

Dancing in the flow of story, unspooling the wisdom of the ages

 

The definition of Unspool -

1: to unwind from a spool <unspool the cable>

2: to execute or present artfully or gracefully <unspooling an intricate tale>

 

Out of the blue one day, I had this vision of a figure dancing on a spool, swirling around, gracefully unwinding the thread.

 

The figure was that of a storyteller, caught in the flow of a story, dancing to the rhythm of the spoken word, deftly following the thread of the intricate tale. 

 

I knew I had to bring this vision to concrete reality. Why?  This image captured for me, what it is like to be in the midst of creative "flow" while telling a story.

 

Quickly, I built a wire figure on top of an antique spool. Then, for several months, let the idea simmer, waiting for a spark of inspiration to present itself. Questions bided patiently, needing to be answered. What materials would I next use? How would I use them?

 

Then, at an estate sale, I found an old book, "Fairy Stories and Fables". It had been given to a young boy, Jack Van Riper from his Uncle Tom and Aunt Gloria on Christmas, 1907. He must have loved the book, it certainly looked liked it had lived a full life!

 

At last an idea! I can use the pages from this book to paper mache' onto my figure, thereby preserving them (in a way). However, the pages were rather crispy and stained. Would they be stable enough to paper mache' onto my figure? Oh my, and what about the illustrations? They were so lovely and special too, I wanted to not let those be lost to time. How could I use those?

 

After doing a test sample, I learned that I could carefully manipulate the old pages with the paper mache' goo, BUT I had to go slowly. Also, I decided to use the illustrations for the dress, but first I lightly colored them, hoping to add extra focus to their presence.

 

My finished, 31" tall figure appears to be female, though this happened more by accident than anything else - it could be either sex. Also, the face is purposely undeveloped. I want the viewer to assign a face that is relevant to their memories, experiences, cultural group...etc.

 
Dancing in the flow of story, unspooling the wisdom of the ages.

Overall, I am pleased with the result. Is it perfect? No, and that is okay.

Three Apples Fell From Heaven

In Mid December, I attended a workshop led by sculpture and UNT adjunct professor, Rene Muhl  at the Dallas Museum of Art. She taught us a mold making technique. We had only a brief amount of time to make something out of non-drying clay, create a mold, then finally a mini-sculpture using Plaster of Paris.  We were asked to think about symbols that had meaning for us. I thought of the Armenian folktale "Three Apples Fell From Heaven".

 

In brief:

Three apples fell from heaven;

one for the teller,

one for the listener,

and one for he who takes it to heart.

 

There has always been a great deal of symbolism in the tale for me. The apples represent the universal wisdom, (some might say, God's wisdom), that reside in our world's folktales. I have created other artworks inspired from it, so this time I decided to make a pendant. Quickly I made an apple, giving a Scandinavian, wood carving texture to the surface. The mold turned out pretty well, and the resulting cast was very pleasing to me. I took it home, painted it and made a pendant! I can reuse the mold using a variety of casting mediums, which I have every intention of doing!

 

Rene Muhl has been a source of great inspiration. She's the one who introduced the idea to me of wiring little puzzle pieces together to create art works. To learn more about her, and see some of her sculptures, visit http://www.txsculpture.com/member/muhl_rene.html  

White Christmas In Plano, TX

We had a white Christmas this year. The cat, Leonidas, did not think highly of the snow.

The dogs Bilbo and Waldo loved it! Jeff was so-so. Me? I LOVED it! So pretty, so peaceful, so Christmasy!

Back in the Saddle Again

My New Year's resolution is to be a better blogger. My goal is to post at least once a week. Hopefully.

I spent most of December busy creating stuff in my art room. I worked mostly with old wool sweaters, what a mess it gets to be, but what fun! Here is a photo of my Painter Elves. They come with their own story I adapted from a Brothers Grimm tale. I made 14 of these little guys.

 Here is Larry David the dog, named by Amanda Blake who works at the DMA. It was my present to her little, cutie-patootie pooch named, George Costanza. I will leave you, the reader, to make the connection between those two names.

 At last, I finally, finally painted the old window in my kitchen. My inspiration was a restaurant in Santa Fe whose dining room is surrounded by painted window panes that are rendered in a primitive folk art style. I love when the sun shines through the painting - it is so colorful. I was very intimidated to do this, not being a very confident painter, but I am happy with the result.

 These are older works from this summer. The mystery creatures were made using left overs bits of stuff. I let my whimsy guide me. I want to create background stories for them.

Lastly here is The Reader after I had DMA patrons and storytellers from the North Forty guild write the titles of their favorite books on it. This is an ongoing piece, I will continue to ask people to write book titles on it until it is covered. The Reader is at present quietly reading "The little Mermaid" by Hans Christian Anderson in my guest room.

Passion For Fashion Summer Camp

The most popular DMA summer camp this year has been "Passion for Fashion". The camp filled up fast with young fashionistas aged 9-12 years of age. I was invited to guest teach one of the days. HOORAY! My class title was "Applique Day!" Students were introduced to the Kuba Cloth from the Democratic Republic of Africa. It is made from raffia, and due to it's brittleness, requires frequent patching. This led to distinctive applique designs very unique to the regions people. As an added activity in the gallery, I told the story of an African wife who asks her husband to bring her a very rare cloth as proof of his love. It never ceases to amaze me that when I am in need of a certain type of story, it appears. What a blessing. The image below is not the gallery example I used, but it is very similar.

For years, I've merged the techniques of applique into all kinds of projects. One of my all-time, favorite activities is using felted, wool sweaters to create bag designs. So, it was a natural step to come up with a similar project for the fashinistas; felt purses with applique designs of their choosing. This is my simple example made specifically for the class. I wanted a project that would not be too intimidating for students who had never done any hand sewing, yet still allowed plenty of challenge for more experienced sewers.

Sadly, I didn't get photos of all the students purses during the fashion show. Still, I did manage to get quite a few to share here on the blog. 

 
After looking at all the finished purses, seeing how unique each one is, just like the young ladies who made them, I feel this project was a success. That's a pretty good feeling to have.

The Reader - What you read becomes a part of who you are.

This is my sculpture titled, 'The Reader - What you read becomes a part of who you are.' The reader is reading from my favorite childhood book, 'Stories from Hans Christian Anderson'. The book is opened to the page with the story, 'What The Moon Saw'. Every night the moon visits a lonely artist who lives in an attic room. The moon tells the artist to "Paint what I tell you, and you will have a fine picture book." Then moon the proceeds to tell the artist stories about what he had seen the night before as he traveled across the sky.

I made it for the Dallas Museum of Art's, BooksmART event June 9th. It was made with packing tape, my daughter who was the model, paper mache dictionery pages, gesso, and a light, blue wash. People of all ages were invited to write on it with a black sharpie the title of their favorite book - anywhere. I had enormous fun visiting with all the people and talking about their favorite books. Letting go of control over how, where, or what people wrote was not so bad. It was totally, creatively satisfying actually.

I took no photos during the event. Too busy. But others did, and I hope to get photos from them i the near future. Plus, I will post photos of the Reader once finished and sealed with a final coat of protective varnish.